Dust and Ezo
by ShardOfSoul
Summary: An asari exploration vessel discovers humanity in an early interstellar stage. Also these humans are from the RWBYverse. This is using a future version of RWBY.
1. Shots in the dark

"This is _Ruby station 11_ , Dust freighter _Dew_ do you copy?" Garnet, an average height amber haired young woman, called on video as she tried desperately to stop fidgeting. On the screen a man with horns on his head responded as the static flickered into form.

"This is the captain of the freighter _Dew_ Baza here to confirm our arrival."

Garnet glanced at her near identical sister Amethyst next to her as she received a thumbs up before quickly looking at her control panel before stating "There is an open space in docking bay 3 I will have it highlighted for your approach."

Baza replied "Great, Baza out" as he shut off the link.

Garnet glanced over at her amber haired sister and asked tentatively "how did I do."

Amethyst looked at her and said "you did great sis, you really need to be more confident we are both the same rank you know."

Garnet looked at her chevrons denoting her lieutenant junior grade rank before saying "Yea but we don't get people at the station often, the last ship to arrive at the station was the one I was on, and that was 6 months ago."

"Cut the chatter." A sharp voice rang as Commander Earl, an imposing 6'5'' man with bulky musculature and long dark hair dropped into room "Also I notice that the lift is down again, is Rufus asleep or dead."

"Dead sir." Amethyst said immediately before they all started laughing.

"Immediately everyone assumes it is my fault" Ralph chimes in on the intercom. "I have requested engineers from remnant to help maintain this damn station for 8 months now and 4 months ago we get 'new personal' and it's just a carbon copy of our receptionist!"

Earl calmly stated back "Every part of this station is understaffed, cultivating and colonizing _Aoria_ below has a higher priority, you know as well as I do until there is a stable population we are on skeleton crew."

"The station is supposed to have 106 technicians managing it. I have 9." Rufus stated in a matter of fact manner.

"They have just docked sir" Garnet informed her commander.

"Good meet me in docking bay one, we need to greet the new crewmembers." Earl shouted while going down the ladder.

The ARS _Suell_ exploratory ship was waiting at an inactive primary relay. Several Asari/Turian warships were waiting as well for security when the relay was opened. The opening of new relays was rarely done by the citadel council due to the risk however this relay had been discovered near the heart of citadel territory and thus opening it was deemed necessary by the council. Matron Nylimia watched what she thought would probably be the only relay activation that she would ever see as she readied the crew of the _Suell_ for the other side. Jesthissa a maiden and her helmswoman informed her that the preparations to start the relay had been completed. At this point Nylimia stood and said to the entire crew over coms "today is a historic day, this relay is on the precipice of new worlds, untold mysteries and discoveries, and if we are lucky new life and civilizations to share with and in our culture. Every person on this crew is trained and prepared for this task, and I know that we can be counted on." After she killed the com she told her first officer Ceetus "I think it was ok."

Ceetus replied snarkily "well it was no worse than usual. Shall I give the order to go through the relay?"

A nod from Nylimia was all she needed to see. "Jesthissa, take us through the relay."

The Suell moved forwards and just a few seconds later they came out on the other side. As they looked out the front window of the ship they saw a system with two stars. "Begin scans" Nylimia said. Then they all began their work.

A few minutes later Ceetus walked up to Nylimia and barely containing her enthusiasm said "The mass relay is encased in ice and will need to be activated from our side to go back." Her Enthusiasm rose as she continued "The star system does not have 2 stars it has three the third is a small star it is about .2 light years out. There is a planet in orbit" She was practically squealing now "the planet is a garden world and there is biomass on it."

Nylimia sighed before telling her "all right, let's investigate but keep your hopes contained. Sapient life is still unlikely. Jesthissa set a course for the garden world maximum distance for detailed scans."

A half hour later and the scans were in. Now Nylimia was excited as well although she kept it in better than the rest of the bridge did. "Commander we have the scans." A more composed Ceetus said before calmly waiting to be told to continue when motioned to do so she said "The planet has a single large settlement with several smaller ones around it and there is a station in orbit. Furthermore there was a small element zero signature during our approach and we scanned a small ship entering the station."

Nylimia got on the com again. "I cannot believe that I am announcing this, it seems fortuitous, insane in fact but we have found an early mass effect civilization. We will inform the council and then with their permission we will begin first contact procedures. Good work everyone." She looked at Ceetus and said, too quietly for the others to hear "let's tell them together old friend."

Ceetus smiled back "Gladly."

The Council came up on screen and Tevos asked serenely "How is the mission going? What is your status?"

Marnus the Turrian was more active than Tevos in his question "Are you under attack?"

"No we are fine." The two Asari said quick to calm the anxious leaders. "We have amazing news." The looked at each other before saying in sync "we found an early spacefaring civilization."

Urtoln the Salarian councilor chimed in. "How early are we talking about? Have you been spotted?"

Ceetus answered "We were not spotted based on the Ezo signature and the fact that they have not discovered the relay we can only assume that they have just reached interstellar flight at most a century ago.

Tevos looked at her associates before saying "We give you permission to make first contact at a time you think is best. I recommend you learn their language and some of their background before this though."

Nylimia smiled as she whispered "Thank you." Into the fading projection.

Iminae called up from the sensor sweep and asked "where do you want me to scan now?"

Nylmia entered into the com system and ordered Iminae to "Scan for information related to language, biology and culture. In that order." With a yes ma'am the process had begun.

At _Ruby Station 11_ Garnet was welcoming the new crewmembers. All of them were mechanics and it brought the department up to 29 leaving the entire station at 54 people. "There Rufus will you quit whining now" Garnet snarked.

"Oh, never." Rufus grinned a middle aged man of average height and a stocky but muscular build. As the crew's all went to their quarters over the intercom Amethyst called "Commander, sis you are going to want to see this." Garnet and Earl glanced at each other before running up to the CIC.

"What is it?" Earl asked his calm authoritative demeanor never breaking.

"So I was looking at the sensor logs when the Dew jumped in and I noticed something strange." She showed them the readings as she continued "This 'asteroid' exuded far more heat than normal before accelerating towards the planet it could have been a collision but then the heat dissipated and it began to decelerate to its current speed. It is currently orbiting the planet."


	2. Learning is fun

Authors note.

Wow. I cannot believe the response that I have gotten so far. I thank all those who have favorited or reviewed my work so far, I will be honest I wrote the entire first chapter in an hour and was in a migraine during it. I thank Alucard Belsing and Ordo Rolanberry for favoring and following respectively. I also thank SirSpangler, Slop to step, and Mioismoe for your comments.

To answer the question of Slop to step this is a future remnant. This is why the station is called Ruby station. More names and details will show up later.

Some further clarification about the timeline. The effective year in C.E. time as it is shown in mass effect would be 2075 meaning that even with the Grim the humans of Remnant discovered interstellar travel earlier. However the system of remnant unlike our sol system did not have its own relay. So humanity only discovered early interstellar travel and never had a massive population boom across the galaxy. Humanity has had mass effect tech for about 25 years. On the RWBY side of the equation, aura still works and as the name of the fic implies dust is still a thing. And remnant is now grim free . Now enough with this expositional ramble, on to the next chapter!

Ch: 2 learning is fun.

The crew at Ruby Station was going about their normal business while the three people on the command staff were in a panic. All three Earl, Garnet, and Amethyst were staring vacantly at the 'asteroid'. After what felt like an eternity Garnet timidly whispered "What do we do."

Earl maintained a calm exterior but the girls could tell that the situation was just as terrifying to him as it was to them. He then spoke more slowly than usual. "We follow protocol, on the off chance that they are hostile but have not spotted us we cannot open communications with them." "Amethyst" He commanded "Contact _Ozpin interstellar 11_ , use the emergency channel tell him that we have spotted extraterrestrials."

On the Suell they picked up an outgoing message from the station amongst all the other data they collected. Heading down to engineering Nylimia asked "how is the progress coming along." Iminae, a young maiden barely 100, said "We deciphered their numeric system already, they are using a base ten simply with different digits. The computer quickly figured out most numbers from their documents. The station name is still unclear, however there is an 11 at the end of it."

Nylimia nodded as she commented "Let's not speculate, the number could be symbolic, until we have the full language anything outside of equations is irrelevant as far as numbers go."

Iminae quickly added "I sent the bio data to Irese in the med-bay. I have 3 algorithms based on citadel language patterns working on the language, given the surface biology my money is on the Asari one getting a pinpoint."

Nylimia cocked her head and asked "what surface biology?" Before Iminae could answer Nylmia was called on the com link. "Captain it is Irese here, I think you need to see this."

Nylimia ran to the med bay where matron, no wait it was matriarch now, Irese was working. Irese looked at her before laughing "you didn't need to spring over here, it is exciting not dangerous."

Nylimia caught her breath before asking "What is the news?"

Irese showed her the charts "This species is really interesting, first of all they are mammalian like us and the Turrians. Seccond they are dimorphic like the Turians. Third they are visually similar to us." Her pace building she finally blurted "and they are multi-racial!"

Nylimia knew only a little of citadel biology and it was shown in her vacant expression. Irese explained more calmly "Many species have had issues with minor physical distinctions that are often called by the layman as a race. This is not the scientific definition though. Many species 'racial' distinctions are so minor that they either do not count or they only count if the definition was expanded to encompass millions of them. This species has 2 clearly distinct races with one of the two having multiple sub catagories."

Nylimia still confused played along. "Well what are they?"

Irese said "the language is not through yet so I do not know the full extent or how it happens but it appears that one of the two races shares physical features with the non-sapient animals of their world."

This caught Nylimia's attention "So you are saying that they have animal parts, but only some of them? That sounds… ridiculous. It sounds like it is from a fairy tale."

Irese smiled as she pointed at the charts "The evidence seems pretty clear. If it were genetic engineering it would not be so historical given this society's technology level. Some of the charts I have go back 2000 years."

Nylimia then asked "how advanced is their medicine?"

Irese unsurely replied "it is… odd, it seems that the species might be oddly resilient as many of the diagrams depict natural healing for things along the lines of gunshot wounds and the like. On the other hand they have advanced limb replacement cybernetics so it seems unlikely that they can regrow full body parts. They seem to have similar treatments to Krogan medicine but their bodies do not seem up to the challenge."

"We have a match!" Jesthissa called on Nylimia's com link.

"Already?" Nylimia responded, incredulous.

"Yes, the Turian language profile found a common pattern and it has been translated to Asari." Jesthissa replied.

Nylimia looked at the station name on the monitor as a translated version appeared _Ruby Station 11_ was shown. "Why would they name a station Ruby?" she pondered as she went to check in with Iminae.

On _Ruby Station 11_. A message was revived from _Ozpin Station 11 "_ do not engage directly. Locate your stations Hunter and send her in using one of the _Tempest_ shuttlecraft."

Earl got on the com "Yenna get." He was cut off by the pink haired wolf Faunus appearing in front of him.

"I heard sir." She interjected. "I already have prepped one of the shuttles and will be leaving immediately for reconnaissance." She then faded away.

Garnet waited for the shuttle to leave before saying "She scares me."

Amethyst and Earl both said "Me too."

On the Suell Jesthissa was excited. She was the helmsperson of what would probably be the most notable ship and mission of her lifetime, she was going to get to meet a new species of people, who looked very attractive to her, and she was… monitoring sensors. "This is the downside to being the junior bridge officer." She thought aloud to an empty bridge. She looked at the station in front of her simultaneously in awe of the new species and disappointed by the fact that a survey vessel was larger than it. By now they had confirmed that this was a colony but even still the ship they saw was barely large enough for 40 people and that was without cargo. She did notice one thing, or more specifically did not notice one thing, Ezo signatures. Judging by the idling ship's Ezo use and the lower average technology of the aliens the Ezo should be similar between the two. Yet she noticed that the Ezo signatures were minimal. The station burned less Ezo in the 20 hours they had been there then they burned in their first hour of idling. While she was pondering she almost missed the heat signature.

"All hands on deck." She yelled into general comms. As the entire crew leapt into action her scans confirmed her gut fear. When the captain got to the bridge she said "one small signature torpedo sized, no life forms."

Nylimia looked at the scan. "It's going at only .02 light speed, raise shields." She patted Jesthissa's arm "you did the right thing, but if there is someone on board I will not kill them. If it is an attack we can easily absorb it with our barriers."

Jesthissa looked up at Nylima and as they stared they received an update that the shuttle was decelerating down to normal velocities.

Jesthissa took a second to register this than said while scanning "still no life forms aboard. It has scanning and transmission on. They know we are here."

While they were scanning the shuttle not one of them noticed the opening of an airlock door.

Yenna entered the ship taking off her space suit then disappearing thinking "ok, let's see what we have got here."

Codex entry: Lunar Schnee facility. The moon of remnant has long been shattered. Dust reserves on remnant have always been solid however their source was unknown. The material of the moon in certain combination with aura and other compounds allows the creation of dust. The second major expansion into space was the Schnee lunar mining colony where massive amounts of dust ore are produced allowing for virtually limitless dust at almost no cost. This facility is the primary penal facility for heavy crimes on remnant as despite attempts to improve safety as shown by its resting state. The moon is not perfectly stable.


	3. Fish out of water

Authors note.

There is so much exposition needed that I intend to add codex entries to the end of every chapter. I would like to thank all the people and groups who have followed/favorited my work however I will no longer be doing it in these notes, I would never forgive myself if I missed someone by mistake. I still intend to respond to any questions either pm ed at me or in the comments. I do not think anyone really did not know this but I do not own either RWBY or Mass Effect. They are owned by Rooster Teeth and Electronic Arts respectively.

…

…

Ch. 3: Fish out of Water.

Yenna was now floating in the airlock which fortunately was currently filled with some sort of gas. She focused as she pressed against the inner airlock door and she pushed through. Her suit's scanners had told her the air was a nitrogen oxygen mix but she did not want to take chances so she stayed in her semblance. As she floated through the ship she saw one of the aliens. To her surprise it was a pretty young blue lady. Deciding to follow her she pushed into the elevator shaft. As they ascended the alien began to hum a little tune. The doors opened and she began to notice some similarities in the ships design to that of their own, just on a much larger scale. "Hmm, this seems too good to be true." She mused "The first aliens we meet look and think almost exactly like us." Of course the young woman could not hear her and continued to walk towards her destination.

Yenna followed the crewwoman until she reached what Yenna assumed were the captains quarters. At which point she saw the door open as a slightly older woman looked out and then around before saying. "Quickly Jess."

At this point Yenna was beginning to tire. She pushed her way down the floor to the airlock where she saw two more of the women looking at the suit. Her panic was overshadowed by one question "Why are only females on this ship?" The two women were calling somewhere on a com system. "We found a spacesuit. It is not one of ours, the 'human' was on the shuttle. We have been boarded." Yenna began to float away as they opened the airlock and pulled the suit in. With no choice left Yenna entered a storage closet and hoped the readings were correct and that she could breathe the air.

As she materialized she felt the weight of her semblance leaving and she immediately gasped for air to discover… that it was normal. She then laughed loudly "Ha blue women! Space is filled with blue women!" She then reentered her semblance and went towards where engineering should be. Once again she was in luck, engineering was empty save what she assumed were key personnel. She entered normal form near an alarm and, in a move that any high schooler would be ashamed to admit, she pulled it. The alarm worked and as the engineers scrambled to fix the 'malfunction' Yenna walked to a panel to gather information. Fortunately one of the younger ones (she looked to be seventeen) did not remove the portable hard drive and would likely forget it if it were removed. Not knowing what she was looking for Yenna decided to download everything oldest to newest. The computer complied, clearly only protected from virtual warfare from an external/malicious source. The drive in hand she took it back to the storage closet in her one chest pocket. Once there she thought of a question she just now realized she had not fully considered. "How do I get out of here?" She wondered. At this point she heard the voice of the older lady from before yell into the storage closet. "Come out. We know you are there." As Yenna looked around for a camera she missed before she had a horrible realization. "They can speak our language."

…

Jesthissa felt odd as she walked to Nylmia's room. Not about walking to the room, which had become common over the years, no what felt odd was this weird looming dread. When the door opened Nylmia pulled her in with her usual reaction. The trepidation over old taboos that held her back, but this time Jesthissa had a different motive than normal.

As she entered the room the alarms went off. There was an intruder on board. "Jess this is not the time." Nylmia sighed.

Jesthissa retorted "That's not what I am here for. Captain a few moments ago I felt a disturbance, just before the alarm went off."

"What kind of disturbance." Nylmia responded with the lighting pace of a family member at a tragedy.

"I do not know how to describe it. It felt like… do you ever get that feeling that someone is watching you even though you do not know that they are there?" Jesthissa asked.

"When I was your age." Nylmia answered. "I think it is probably nothing."

Jesthissa nodded as she got up to return to her post. Nylmia looking at her than said "But I think that even if it would normally be nothing when it comes to you your instincts are usual right on point. What is your thought on the matter?"

As she looked around her boss's Spartan quarters she had a realization. "We have no sensors in our storage rooms, and the stowaway is after information otherwise we would already have injuries. Therefore I think that she will go to a high data storage area like engineering, create a diversion and then attempt to re-steal her shuttle to leave."

"I agree, and maybe she did follow you for a while to try and find our patterns to avoid guards." Nylmia concluded as she got up and on the comm she heard that the Ezo core had been set to emergency dump in 10 minutes.

Jesthissa pointed at the storage room one level above engineering and they both knew that was where the stowaway would be.

…

Yenna opened the door to see the two women near her. Keeping her claws and weapon sheathed she murmured "Of course they know your language why wouldn't they, and why wouldn't they monitor storage rooms constantly, its' dangerous non weapon non fuel stuff in here."

While she mumbled fearing the worst of sci fi movies to happen to her the younger alien gently touched her hand and said "It's ok, the engineering staff stopped the core dump. No harm was done."

Yenna looked up at the young but still taller, damn even the alien women are taller than me she thought, blue woman and felt strangely enthralled. She quickly snapped out of it and asked "why did you come to our planet. What do you want from us?"

Jesthissa looked into her eyes and despite this being a completely new alien species she could still see the fear in her eyes. "I am Jesthissa the navigator/communications officer of this vessel. This is my captain Nylmia. This is the survey ship Suell."

Before they could continue Yenna interrupted "how do you speak my language?"

Nylmia took control of the situation quickly halting the spiral "I will tell you in my quarters if you would accompany us."

Despite the lack of guns carried by the aliens somehow Yenna knew refusal was a bad call so she followed them back up careful to not show that she already knew the way.

In the room there was a small couch and an armchair. The older one Nylima or Nylmia as Yenna remembered took the chair as she sat next to the younger Jesthissa.

"So why did you board our ship." Nylmia asked.

"Why are you in our system and how do you know my language?" Yenna retorted

Nylmia said "we are exploring this system and we found this planet just over a day ago. We know your language because of our translation software. Right now you are hearing a computer translation of my words." Nylmia forestalled "We have translated your language through the com data from your station and the colony below.

Yenna then asked "Where are all the men? Do you not allow them on the ship or something?"

Nylmia smiled slightly "I understand your confusion, you humans are sexually dimorphic, the Asari, that's our species, has only one sex. There are no men." Nylmia then asked the question that had been burning her up since the alarm first sounded. "How did you get through the airlock door? The outer door registered you opening it and we simply missed it with the distraction from your ship, however there is no indication that you ever opened the inner airlock door. If you were that capable of hacking our security your attempts in engineering would have gone unnoticed."

Yenna then stared at her for a second before saying. "I don't know the inner door was never sealed. I just walked through."

"Iminae, that's my chief engineer, has had some trouble with your ship's fuel supply." Nylmia asked. "We could not find any helium 3 and there was not even enough element zero for a trip to here and back on the ship."

"Man Earl is going to grill me if I forgot to fill the Ezo again." Yenna said.

"No it's not that, the reservoir is nearly full." Jesthissa clarified. "We mean that the reservoir does not have enough Element Zero to run a ship of that size even at low ftl rates.

Yenna then asked "Wait, what's helium 3?"

At this point Iminae came in not noticing Yenna there holding a padd with her report. "We have finished analyzing the ship, it appears to be a short range shuttlecraft, primarily for in system use. Its engine runs an FTL drive however we could not locate any fuel source while the vessel is powered down and as my initial analysis speculated the Ezo well is unusably small in comparison to what is needed for the mass of the ship.

At this point Iminae noticed the pale skinned alien sitting right next to her. Barely avoiding a blackout she said "Hi I'm Iminae, are you the pilot of the ship? I have many questions about it."

Yenna incredulous at the fact that she was still alive and that the hyper advanced aliens had questions about HER tech snarkily replied "Yes, I have heard the questions, why don't you just start it up. Heck if you are worried about it exploding in your face or something I can come with."

Iminae looked at Nylmia who nodded. Iminae now looking at the human wistfuly stated "That would be nice."

Down at the hangar where the shuttle had been pulled in a couple of older yet junior techs were still looking over the ship. Iminae beckoned them away. The both entered the ship with Yenna taking the pilot seat. "Ok can you start it up?" Iminae asked. Yenna turned on the engine and the mass effect core activated. As the process happened Iminae watches in surprise as the now active element zero fell in minuscule drops into the lower chamber that she thought was just burned slag. This pile of… well dust started to activate as well and she watched as the mass decreased to allow ftl travel.

Yenna was unfazed by the normal process of a starting engine. "See nothing to it." She said. "Just a normal ftl drive. I mean it doesn't have anything on yours. This ship is massive." She finished.

Iminae then asked still staring at the material in wonder. "What is that material that the Ezo is infusing?"

Yenna responded matter of factly "oh, that's just dust."

…

Codex Entry. The Remnant coalition: Remnant cleared the grim in the year 2020 galactic time, from that point on there was no grim threat to unite humanity. To prevent the slide into internal conflict the Remnant coalition was formed. This organization was focused on expanding humanity into space as well as fixing wild areas and underdeveloped areas at home. Until 2050 the second one was the only one worth mentioning. However a miracle happened in 2049. A piece of Remnant's shattered moon's orbit decayed enough for a dust engine to get within 1 kilometer of the fragment. In that year all of humanities scientific community worked to fix that last kilometer of distance. By 2050 a one way rocket was launched. The dust would not work on the way back down so the astronauts simply had to transmit the data back as best they could. Calli Arc was the first human to visit another world, even if it was only 6 km long. On that tiny speck of dust they found an artifact with only one piece of information, a way to locate deposits of one ore in particular. This allowed the coalition to find the element zero on remnant and traverse the stars. Currently the coalition has several planets and planetoids colonized in the sol system and one in the nearby Centari system. The census though imperfect puts humanities total population at around 17.4 billion of which approximately 8.9 billion live on Remnant.


	4. first contact'

Authors note:

Hi this is Shard here. I would like to thank all people who have followed, favorited, or even just read this. I am hereby handing out 1 internet cookie for everyone . I have a special note for the reviews of Amatsumi and an unnamed guest. To Amatsumi I apologize, you are correct of course that the Turians are Avian not mammalian and I feel stupid for even making that mistake . I will not make it again in the future and when time permits me I will fix the error in Ch.2. As for the guest review, though it was hard for me to read I assume that you were trying to say that the fuel for ships in mass effect is not element zero but instead Helium 3 utilizing fusion for actual power and simply using Ezo to reduce mass. This is also correct and I did not adequately explain what was going on in Ch.3 with the engine. So for you my fine nameless friend I write a codex entry on dust. One last thing before I proceed into chapter four, I do not own Mass Effect or RWBY. Now onwards to glorious… lore fodder .

…

Codex entry: Dust: Dust is the term applied to a material native to the world of remnant and also the primary material in its moon. Though originally believed to be a set of naturally occurring crystals in 4 distinct elemental types, ice, lighting, fire and earth. It was revealed by the exploratory team to the shard of remnant that dust has an element neutral base state. By itself dust is unimpressive, an easy to miss grey rock, however it is intensely mimetic meaning that it can take on other forms when in prolonged exposure to other materials. Aura interacts uniquely with dust, magnifying the effects when it is catalyzed yet making the same catalyst more difficult to reach. The dust found on remnant itself has been exposed to so much aura for so long that when it leaves an area with that high an aura pollution it is no longer usable. The dust mined on the moon is primarily mined robotically with only some human interaction ensuring that it is still usable in space or on colony worlds. Remnant itself still uses local dust and with constantly improving machinery it looks like it will be able to use its own reserves for a very long time. Element Zero can be mixed with dust to generate the mass effect. When dust is exposed to element zero depending on the charge of the environment at that moment the activated dust will act as a magnifier for the element zero. Prolonged exposure converts dust fully into "Dust Zero" Increasing catalyzing efficiency yet rendering unusable for any other purpose. Helium 3 like the fuel in the probe was briefly experimented with but Ezo slag dust (A combination of burn dust and Dust Zero") was simply far simpler and more efficient to pursue.

…

Ch 4: 'First contact':

Some day's Tevos hated her job. This was one of them, though she was several hundred years the senior of the two other councilors they both were still far more experienced politicians than she would have liked. The reports that the Suell first officer Ceetus was giving them did not help. Her plan of learned first contact backfired and it was only due to quick thinking and luck that they and not already started a war, luck that the other councilors seemed to want to throw away.

"It was an ATTACK on our ship!" Marnus yelled at the Urtoln.

The salarian responded "Yes, after we invaded their sovereign territory, although an attack seems like a harsh claim."

"She tried to dump the drive core!"

"It was most likely unknowingly."

"However…" Urtoln began to reason. "Maybe it would be best to cut our losses, Have the Suell return to citadel space and return with a conquest fleet. It is regrettable to be sure but we know that we can win now, if we give them time to develop with fear of us it can only end badly. If we are not to attack we need to repair the damage with an efficient 'first contact' with a large amount of data, openness and honesty."

"That plan requires too many things to fall into place, military action is the only reasonable recourse." Marnus declared.

Urtoln looked at the report again, not for his own benefit but to put his finger on a line. "Read this again Marnus. 'We still have no idea where the human was when except for the interference at engineering.' She was not picked up on sensors, the victory could be very bloody and if we do not exterminate them maintaining control would be virtually impossible."

Tevos finally entered the fray with "We didn't exterminate the Krogan for a devastating interstellar war. We are not going to exterminate a new species that we were performing espionage on for retaliating in kind. Tell the Suell that it is time to unfreeze and open the relay, then we will join the ambassadorial fleet. In case things go poorly Marunus, bring some Dreadnoughts and cruisers for insurance. They have no ships that can stand up to anything larger than a frigate according to known data so far."

Looking at her secretary Tevos asked "About the data transferred back from the Suell?"

Her secretary looked up at her and then said "Their medical and scientific progress does not match that of citadel species, the computer cannot make heads or tails of it. We have transferred those files to individual sapient scientists in each field. This helped the backlog but progress is still slow. We do know their life expectancy is around 110 years similar to that of the Turrians. Other than that their biology is strange. Many of the preliminary abstracts from papers are referring to them as that word in particular. Cultural analysis is even slower, it seems though that the primary reason is related to the limited data in the small colony the Suell was investigating most readers have simply said it feels 'incomplete'."

Tevos looked at a couple of the abstracts briefly before leaving praying she could stop the worst case scenario of council enacted genocide from occurring.

…

Ceetus went down to the bay where the human and shuttle were being held very cooperatively. It still did not make sense to her. The human should not have gotten past ALL of the security teams without violence and should not have avoided ALL of the cameras. Especially since the way she was captured relied on her NOT knowing the ships layout. As head of security and first office such a person was a mandatory meeting.

Yenna was 'explaining' dust to Iminae. But she wasn't really, she was a soldier not an engineer and she was focused on what, in her mind, were far more important things like (she is really cute) and (do we even have the same protein base, or the same cell structure? Is she a plant?). Iminae was not fooled for a minute and interrupted her with "Are you ever going to actually explain how this drive core works or do you simply not know it?"

Surprised by the awareness of the teenager she blurted "The second one." After receiving a stare from the Asari she said "You know you are really smart for a kid."

Iminae did not take to well to this. "Hey! I am not a kid, I turned 112 last month, yes I am young for an engineer but I am a full grown adult thank you very much."

Yenna's jaw dropped. "You're 112?"

Iminae began to roll her eyes as she instinctively responded "Yes 11-" She cut her self-off before asking "How old are you?"

Yenna replied "24"

They were cut off when Ceetus entered the shuttle. Ceetus demanded "How did you get past security."

Yenna unfazed had only one response, she asked Iminae "Who is this bitch?"

Iminae nervously responded, "Head of security and first officer… Ceeuts." She turned to Ceetus and then asked "didn't you catch her in the first place?"

Ceetus's expression softened as she said "No that was the Captain and Navigator." Yenna noticed that she did not refer to them by name. She was never seen on any sensor and she was not detected at all except once in engineering and that was during an Ezo core dump.

Yenna laid back in her seat as she prepared the most infuriating statement "I don't know, I guess your security teams must just be terrible at their jobs. I mean I literally just walked up to the engineering room. (Technically true) Walked in through the door (still technically true but now more true than the normal usage of those words.) and no one saw me. I wonder how a random group hasn't taken over your ship yet given the ease I did it."

Ceetus's eyes flared as she listened. She decided to leave the annoying human and go triple check for sabotage by her.

As she left Iminae let out a sigh before telling Yenna "She scares me."

Yenna smiled and leaned in practically touching Iminae's nose before whispering. "You want to know a secret." Iminae slightly nodded for Yenna to continue "I scare everyone back on the station."

Yenna leaned back and Iminae asked "W—what's your full name, mine is Iminae Caleze."

Yenna Threw out a wicked grin as she said "Yenna-Xiao-Long".

…

Back on Ruby Station 11 a distress call had already been sent. The fleet was on its way but it was still a full day out. Earl had everyone preparing the station for combat but they were understaffed and ill equipped for a fight. Every single soldier had the same thought on their mind, "I hope they board us because we cannot win at range." They were of course hoping that this could be resolved peacefully if only because they knew they could never win a fight. The ship sent was bigger than all but the largest human frigates and it moved so freely, already it was on the far end of the system hanging around near one of the icy planetoids on the far end of the Centauri System. Garnet and Amethyst took turns maintaining watch over the computer systems but Earl had now been up for 42 hours. Fortunately the stims that had been provided were of great affect and although he would call it a stretch to say he was fit for duty he was ready for a fight. Garnet was passing out on the console so he poked her arm gently. She woke up fluttering "I'm sorry sir, so sorry sir."

Earl just gently smiled before telling her "its ok you are 11 hours in, I am relieving you early, I can take it from here."

Garnet smiled softly and said "Thank you sir." As she crept away.

He took a seat at the monitor. The fleet was ahead of schedule. It would arrive within the hour "Excellent" he mused "I cannot wait to see my old friend again."

…

One hour later the fleet arrived, over two dozen ships some of them over 200 meters long! It was truly an impressive display of humanities might, but the alien ship was still not clearly going to lose. It was only slightly smaller than the largest ships and it was still faster and probably superior in many other ways.

It was at this moment that the planetoid that the ship was near shattered in its entirety and a massive alien fleet appeared on the station's scanners.


	5. World Out There

Authors note:

So… here's ch 5. Sorry for the delay.

…

Ch 5: there's a whole lot of world out there.

"ACTION STATIONS." Earl yelled out on the com system. In under a minute the entire station was up and on alert. "Amethyst, what are we dealing with?" he asked voice trembling

Amethyst did not respond simply staring blankly into the monitor.

"Okay Amethyst pull yourself together." Earl said "start with friendly ships." He announced. He knew the fleet backwards and forwards but forcing the routine would help the junior officers.

Amethyst began. "There are 3 Ironwood class heavy cruisers, 10 Tanner cruisers, 17 Vi destroyers and the accompanying fighters from the cruisers. 160 fighters in total."

"Ok now identify the contacts." Earl Prodded

Amethyst gulped before continuing. "There are 60 ships in total sir, there is the original ship that we have been dealing with but now there are an additional 39 ships in the 180-210 meter range. Furthermore there are 15 ships in the 490-540 meter range." She braced herself trying to disbelieve the number she was seeing. Finally she relented that this was reality "And there are two… two… ships that are over 800 meters long."

All throughout the human fleet similar statements and reactions were occurring. Fear was not an unknown, the Grim had left a permanent scar on humanities psyche, but this was practically incomprehensible. Even before the takedown of the single ship was problematic but as everyone was now realizing the ship that had arrived, that they were unsure of their ability to beat was just a "Scout" admiral Azure said aboard the Sno.

"All that was just a scouting mission. This is probably not their entire fleet and it dwarfs ours." He thought, normally he would be more controlled but the word scout did slip from his tongue. "There is no way that we can win." He continued to reason "Our only hope is that they come in peace, a possibility that is looking less likely by the minute." Finally he ordered "This is Admiral Azure to all ships, launch fighters and assume a combat formation facing theirs." He looked over to his communications officer and said "Get Earl on the line. I need to speak with him."

…

The combined fleet was prepping to go through the relay and Tevos did not know whether to be impressed or terrified. The fleet was not huge in the way of dreadnoughts but it still had a sizable number of ships, 2 Turian dreadnoughts 15 cruisers and 39 frigates not to mention that the Suell on the other side was not defenseless. From what had been garnered from the Suell's intelligence this was gross overkill, but both Marnus and Urtlon insisted that the fleet be this large so that any aggression could be effortlessly swept aside. Tevos was shocked that those two managed to agree on anything so she didn't push the matter.

"Councilors we are approaching the relay" the pilot said. Marnus replied "When the entire fleet is ready we all go through at once."

Just 3 minutes later and they were all through the relay. Scans of the system were unimpressive at first, then later, then after the third scan they realized that the human fleet had been there the whole time. "How did you not notice them?" Marnus yelled lividly. The Turian at the station replied, "They were idling sir, they did not give off enough of an Ezo signature for me to distinguish them from slag until now."

Urtlon had a more pertinent question "What do they have?"

The Turian responded "They have 3 large frigates at about 270 meters, 10 frigates at about 190 meters, 17 of some, I don't know, some kind of small 55 meter gunboat and about 150 one human fighters."

"It seems our intelligence was sound." Urtlon conceded before quickly adding "But it never hurts to be prepared."

"Hail the Suell" Tevos said. "I still want to find a way to peacefully resolve this mess."

…

Aboard the Suell, Yenna was planning her escape, she already planned on seducing the girl next to her to get her to let her go. Iminae was pretty naïve still despite her intelligence, however she had to scrap that plan because the cues she would read from humans might be absolutely worthless for Asari, for all she knew the girl was holding her in open contempt and she just did not know it. She could not steal a small craft from aboard the ship because if she did she would not be able to pilot it. Even if she could escape she then realized she had nowhere to run too, the station was virtually unarmed and even if this vessel was a survey ship like the captain claimed there was no way that the station could hold up to this monstrosity in a fight. Then she saw it, the full human fleet arrived, even though her shuttle had minimal sensors the reading was unmistakable. Her hope was fleeting though as she realized she would still never make it. The scans of a colossal fleet by what they called "The relay" were just the last nail in the coffin. She prayed that she was not being lied too, and that they really wanted peace, because in a war every one of them would die.

…

On Ruby Station 11 the flagship Sno was hailing them. Earl answered starting with "Look, I swear when we sent the distress signal, there was only one here." It did nothing to alleviate the tension. Once he was away from the soldiers in the cic he asked "So I assume this isn't a social call friend?"

"Unfortunately no" Azure replied "We need to know there intentions and you have the person onboard who can do it."

"No" Earl barely kept from yelling "We cannot use Garnet and you know it"

"I don't like it either but we are out of options." Azure said "We need a gauge on them if we want to do this."

"I will ask" Earl conceded "But I cannot order her to do it"

Azure looked down "She's a good person. She'll do it."

Earl closed the line and wiped a tear from his eye before calling Garnet down to his office.

"You asked to see me sir?" Garnet mumbled as she walked in

"Yes I did, as you may have noticed there is a small fleet outside our window." Earl stated

"Yes sir I noticed… I didn't do it." Garnet replied.

Earl looked at her and asked "Please forgive me for asking you this, but can you use your semblance to find out what they want? It is the only way command can think of to avoid combat."

Garnet began to tear up but Earl walked around and hugged her. "It's ok, I'll be with you the whole time."

Garnet whispered. "Can you knock me out, I won't be able to stop once I have started."

Earl softly whispered back "Yes I will, I'm sorry but thank you."

Garnet then said almost entirely off topic. "Do you remember the old stories about the Grim." Before Earl could replied she said "I don't mean the stories of the team RWBY or the heroes of remnant, I don't mean of maidens or even of those fairy tales. I am not referring to the silver eyed warriors either, though they are old enough, I am referring to the tail of the death of hope. The silver warriors were dying and humanity seemed helpless, they were gone for decades with only a couple of lines in hiding or buried in recessive traits. There was no dust, no glory, just humans fighting for their lives against an endless threat, like children fighting adults. But they won, they won and humanity survived to find dust." She looked at him "I cannot promise you an answer, I can only tell you what I see."

With that she closed her eyes and activated her semblance.

…

Yenna felt something strange, like there was something peering into her mind. She tried to force it out but it was too strong for her. She heard a whisper. "Hi." Garnet said.

In her head Yenna screamed "WHAT THE HELL. GET OUT OF MY HEAD."

Garnet replied, "Calm down, let me see who is in charge of the ship." Yenna immediately noticed the thoughts coming to the surface. Garnet then chirped "Thanks, gotta go." Yenna looked around. She knew about Garnet but she didn't think they would be that desperate, looking at Iminae as she inspected the undercarriage, something about calibrations, she decided that if things were that bad she might as well give it a shot.

Nylmia was in a meeting with Tevos, Urtlon and Marnus as she tried to explain how the mission went south. "In short we underestimated them." She concluded. A voice in her head replied. "Yep, are these three your bosses?" Before Nylmia could answer the presence was gone. After a second it was back and the voice said "Ok so I am asking all of you what your intentions are with regards to the humans across the solar system." Once again before they could answer she had what she needed. "Thanks bye." She said before leaving.

After she was gone Nylmia, Tevos, Urtlon and Marnus all looked at each other before simultaneously saying "What the hell was that?!"

Back on the station Earl felt a presence in his head thinking it has only been two minutes and that the presence must be Garnet. She confirmed his statement by telling both him and Azure that the aliens wanted a peaceful first contact, she would have said more but that was what they needed and she went back into her body. He saw her mouth open as she said. "Remember you promised, I really don't want to have to knock myself out." In the heat of the moment Earl decided not to ask why she had to be knocked out when it looked like she had gone back to normal but he obliged.

Her unconscious body on the floor, he called Azure. "So how long does she stay unconscious again?" Earl asked.

Azure looked at a paper and said "It appears to be about a month per minute so over 2:38 she will be out for about 79 days. Again, I'm sorry."

Earl decided to go to Amethyst and tell her what happened. Five minutes later his collapsing windpipe made him question his decision.

"YOU HAD HER USE HER SEMBLANCE. REALLY ARE YOU THAT IMPATIENT? I MEAN YOU COULD HAVE JUST HAD HER JUMP OFF A BRIDGE, DID YOU REALLY NOT JUST CONSIDER TALKING TO THEM?" Her anger turning into sadness as she let Earl down "Oh… right, different languages, hostile situation… no choice." She then left to be with her sister.

Azure called Earl back and Earl was pissed. "Ok, I have lost 3 of my senior staff in less than a week." "We have a contact with the aliens!" Azure interrupted. "Once I knew they were friendly I opened a communication line, they downloaded software (Which I routed through a destroyer first) that allowed us to translate our languages."

Earl was further enraged "79 days Azure. We were reckless, or too cautious, I cannot tell which and frankly I do not know which one pisses me off more."

Azure looked both ways before saying "I know, my decision was wrong. If I ever write an autobiography I will have this in the chapter about my failures but for now let's focus on using this triumph while it lasts. Fortunately we have a perfect meeting place for first contact."

Earl sighed knowing where this was going. "We are going to meet on your station commander. They have already agreed to release Yenna and she will be returning to you soon. Now get your staff into their dress uniforms, the delegation will be arriving in an hour."

…

Yenna heard the news from Iminae as soon as Imi turned her com-link back on. Once that happened she regretfully kicked her off the shuttle as they both had work to do. As she arrived on the station she had one thought on her mind, hunger. She did not realize how long it had been since she last had solid food. "Hey commander" She said as she passed the man in full dress on her way to the mess hall. Fortunately for her it was still open, there wasn't anyone there but that did not stop her. After her 5th turkey she looked around to see that Amethyst was there tears red from crying. "Mind if I join you?" She asked icily.

"No of course not." Yenna suddenly feeling insecure replied. 

Amethyst walked around her brushing her hand over Yenna's hair before saying "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to spook you, and it's just hard. I try to protect her from everything and yet she has still lost near a decade of her life in other people's thoughts."

Yenna's eyes bulged "A decade, how nosy is she?" The fist in her gut stopped her from continuing.

"That's about 2 hours in people's heads nimrod. She loses a month a minute with it." Amethyst growled.

Yenna wheezed "Wow, the worst I have to deal with is feeling a little tired, and I turn into the grim reaper for crying out loud."

"She's just so sweet too, I am grateful for her intelligence because otherwise she would be far more deficient than just naiveté." Amethyst continued ignoring Yenna's attempts at consolation.

Yenna decided to let her continue to ramble which she did for almost an hour before the intercom announced. "All hands on deck the alien science vessel is preparing to dock."

…

Tevos looked out the bow window at the station they were approaching. It was small compared to most of the stations that the council species made and it was positively minuscule in comparison to the citadel. The heavy frigate was already on the other side as the Suell docked. Once docked the councilors prepared to disembark along with Nylmia, and her chief security, engineer and medical officers. Furthermore Marnus insisted on bringing along a fire team and Urtlon brought two scientists. In total this was 15 people, there was no doubt in Tevos mind that with the communication barrier gone the rest of this process would go smoothly.

The airlock doors opened and Tevos heard a deep voice say "Welcome to the station, I hope you do not take offense to anything."

As she looked around the gruff exterior of the station did not betray the sophisticated if quaint interior. She spoke up "On behalf of the citadel council I thank you for your invitation, my name is Tevos my fellow councilors are Marnus" She said pointing at the turrian "And Urtlon" She pointed at the Salarian.

Earl looked across the three aliens. One looked somewhat birdlike and was in full armor (as was the obvious fire team) one looked like a lizard on hind legs and he could not tell whether it was male or female, the last one was superficially the most human but he dared not take it further than that the person was mammalian and female. He then said "If you will please follow me, I will take you to the admiralty board." As they walked he continued "Normally we would have a full delegation of political leaders and ambassadors however we need to be sure that the situation is stabilized and we do not have the time it would take to bring them here."

Urtlon noted that it would take one of their ships only 7.5 hours to get to their home world and back meaning that either they sent all their ships and their ships are slower or they think the situation is so unstable that open communication would be insufficient for 8 hours. He hoped it was the former but he sent a written message to both of the other councilors with the options.

The three councilors arrived in the room to find there were three seats at a table across from where three humans two white haired and wrinkled and one with blue hair and green eyes. The blue haired one introduced himself "I am Azure Williams and for the moment I will be representing humanity."

Tevos said "I am Citadel Councilor Tevos, I am representing the Council species as a whole and the Asari republics."

Urtlon and Marnus both followed suit.

Azure gave a Cheshire grin as he said "Now that I know who you are I must ask why you are here?"

Urtlon responded. "We found a primary mass relay, that structure out there, by our territory. We sent in the Suell on an exploratory mission to the other side for security reasons. The intent was to explore and if possible find new species to identify threats."

Tevos interjected "Once they found your planet by the relay they asked for permission to engage in first contact, at the time we misunderstood early space flight to mean slower than light. Due to our misinterpretation the normal first contact procedures were improperly followed." She felt bad lying about their first contact policy but it would serve her purposes.

As expected the human said "Hmm, at least you make mistakes too."

Marnus now took over the conversation "Now that there is no more threat due to a semi-successful first contact we are pulling our largest ships back through the relay. There is no need for them here anyways, with the differences in fleets it was brutal overkill."

Tevos took that opportunity to say "There are some technical details that you are behind on. In interest of mending fences and mutual benefit we are prepared to immediately offer an associate membership to the citadel."

Azure looked at his compatriots and after some whispering asked "Associate membership?"

Tevos calmly explained. "Yes an associate membership, the three species here are full members of the council, there are an additional 4 species that hold associate member status, the Hanar, Volus, Elcor and Batarians are all associate members. Their security and advancement is also represented by the council."

Azure then asked "Why are they not full members?"

Marnus simply stated "Because they have not earned it." After a brief glare from the other two he elaborated "What I mean to say is that the Citadel Council is run by those who have the capacity to keep the peace and those who have shown a willingness to sacrifice their own species for the sake of the whole. The Asari and Salarians formed the citadel. They managed it for over a millennia before the Turrians joined. My species turned the tide in a war against a species known as the Krogan. Normally associate members have some similar requirements. The difference is that under circumstances the associates can have the requirements waved like with the Volus or now with humans.

Azure now seemed slightly more on-board "What are the requirements for an associate member?"

Urtlon began to speak as if reading a list written in his mind "Well first of all we require you to follow wmd tier guidelines. No devices under any of the 4 tiers is considered acceptable, the only difference is accessibility. Although for now this is a non facto when you begin dreadnought construction you must follow the treaty guidelines of maintaining only 1 for every 5 Turrian dreadnoughts. And finally you may not create any sapient life either through genetic engineering or through artificial intelligence."

Azure started laughing uncontrollably as he pulled his arm out and opened a maintenance panel. "I think we might need to discuss that one."

…

Codex entry: Human colonies. The colonies of humanity are entirely located on or around the 5 worlds in the sol system with the exception of the newest one in the Centauri system. The colonies are all rapidly growing in population in comparison to remnant although mining colonies on the moon are intentionally kept small to stop aura pollution. The largest colony is on the planet Anza. It is a garden world with minimal plant and animal life at approximately .92 planet size. Due to the high temperatures there are two separate colonies centered on the poles. These colonies have a combined population of 6.3 billion. The northern and southern cultures are as different as they are from remnant. The southern colony was settled by descendants of the crisis of the heroic quests of team RWBY and many of the other old hunter teams. These descendants provide the majority of the volunteer military service due to the strong military and heroic traditions. The northern side of the planet is the center for higher learning in the system. The sciences take full focus and most research happens here. The only exception to this is dust and dust replication research which takes place on Goodwitch bases on other smaller colony worlds or on stations due to aura pollution. Both groups are noted for their artistic achievements though Remnant itself is still the primary artistic powerhouse. The equatorial region is uninhabitable as the hottest weather boils water and melts many low melting point materials.


	6. The Treaty of Relay 317

Dust and ezo ch 6:

Authors note: Hi everyone, I am sorry that it took (looks at date) over nine months for me to return to this work. I do apologize. I would make some sort of promise that this won't happen again but I have no credibility to stand on at this point. So I just want to thank everyone who reviews, favorites, follows or even just reads this silly crossover esque thing I am writing :). On to the next chapter now.

Codex Entry: Human space warfare: Due to a very limited understanding of the mass effect and virtually no access to element zero humanity is restricted from large space bound hulls both for the practical reason of the difficulty of expanding a dust infused ezo field around a large ship and due to the impracticality of railguns without large usage of the mass effect. Without the ability to use large spinal mounted railguns a larger ship becomes a tactical drawback as most missile weapons can be carried on relatively small hulls. The largest ships act far more like carriers for this reason, dedicating most of their space to fighters designed to take out larger ships. In part protected by the screen of dust torpedos these fighters inflict the majority of a human fleets damage. The other primary doctrine is the favoring of boarding actions, while most species (except the krogan) generally try to only take boarding actions when opportune or for species like the volus as a last resort, Remnant forces view boarding actions as the best way to disable enemy ships utilizing commando and hunter squads to rapidly overwhelm a ship's crew then turn its own weapons on the original fleet.

The Treaty of relay 317:

After a brief kerfuffle the negotiations went ahead as planned to Tevos mind. The human's robot ai's seemed stable and to operate in a human emotional bandwidth. The deal was very favorable as intended. The Human Coalition would be granted immediate associative status and full territorial control of the region on this side of the relay. The asari would claim the undeveloped space on the council side of the relay excluding a single station on the other side of the relay thus allowing the asari to if necessary restrict human trade in the wider galactic economy. In effect the humans would be relegated to something of a client state if all continued to go as planned… for their own benefit of course Tevos justified to herself. Of course she had already commissioned many teams for scientific and "cultural" exchanges. Although in many ways far behind in technology the humans terraforming in particular appeared to be of use. Even if it took decades turning baren worlds into garden worlds was well worth the effort. The humans medical science was still giving her a headache. They had little in the way of damage repair except for major injuries such as limb removal where they simply replaced the missing limb with cybernetics. The asymmetrical technology sometimes gave her a headache. Then Tevos heard a voice on the intercom.

"Councilor Tevos, Irise is here to speak to you" The young asari chimed.

"Send her in" Tevos replied neutrally.

Irise walked in, despite there closeness in age she felt somewhat nervous, after all she was now about to speak to the de-facto leader of the galaxy at large.

"You wanted to speak to me Councilor Tevos?"

"Yes, I have read your reports on the human's and their subspecies. I know it is a stretch given the limited interaction we have had with them but I was wondering if you had any insights into their neurobiological and psychological profiles."

Irise gulped slightly "No, I do not, I have only had a few days to analyze this new species and I still cannot figure out much through their medical records. The only thing that I have been able to really discern is an incredibly wide array of physical features and that they seem to have some very effective natural defenses as their medicine for light injuries is barely out of the industrial era while they apparently have cybernetics for replacing lost limbs."

Tevos mused for a moment before replying "Ok, I have assigned the suell to be a liason to the Human Coalition for the time being, I will officially make the announcement tomorrow and anyone who wishes to leave may do so, if you decide to stay I want you to try and figure out their bio-mechanics. You will have almost unrestricted access not just to their files but to their staff as well. Although they do not seem to be a threat we need all the information we can get on them"

"Will that be all?"

"Yes" Tevos replied. "You may go now. I am sure you would like to get started as soon as possible."

Meanwhile Urtlon and Marnus both met on the bridge of the Viclius.

"This is an outrage!" Marnsus shouted, heard only by the salarian and a few command officers.

"It does make sense… the humans are nestled directly within asari space" Urtlon attempted to reason "however… this is troubling, although the Asari have never pushed that they are the largest of the big three, a territory of unknown size and client race of unknown potential… is disturbing even in their hands." He continued "The salarian government has convened with me and with this new treaty we would like to pursue a secret defense and espionage pact to deal with the asari." He paused briefly before continuing. "Furthermore this treaty would involve both governments secretly bypassing the limits of all naval treaties, using salarian counterintelligence to hide both our governments bypassing the dreadnought limitations amongst other things."

Marnus stared at the padd with the terms of this treaty before replying with all emotion void from his face. "These terms will need to be ironed out, but we are amicable to the idea. In fact the primarchs sent me a message asking to propose a similar deal."

"Very well." Urtlon concluded. "I for one hope that this proves unnecessary but we must be prepared."

On Aoria the situation was relatively calm but still tense. The fleets and extraterrestrial sightings were public knowledge but they all knew that if anything were to go wrong not just in the current negotiations but at almost any time in the future that this planet would be the first in the line of fire. The temporary colonial governor Han was having a hard time keeping people calm as fear of imminent death even in the midst of the new treaty was rampant. He knew that riots were not far off if anything went wrong and he spent the last few days doing everything in his ability to ensure that nothing would go wrong. Fortunately the last shipment of dust meant that they could ensure no shortages for the near future and it looked like the storm would pass soon. He looked up at the night sky, although he could not see the fleets with his unaided eye, he knew they were there. "Sir?" His aide corporal Lilly half asked

"Yes?" He replies

"We just received note that one of their ships with a crew of roughly 200 will be staying for the time being and that some of them will be visiting us."

Han gulped before replying "alright. We should be prepared to receive them."

"It appears that they have their own translation technology" Lilly informed continuing, rambling "and we have been sent the alien physical appearances." Handing over the scroll before continuing "There is a note for the bird like ones that apparently they use a mirrored protein base and therefore cannot consume our food."

"Convenient" Han murmured sarcastically.

As she left the room he murmured "what else could go wrong?"

On Ruby station Azure was waiting in Earls office as he obliged the commanders ranting.

"This is madness, how could we effectively give up our sovereignty this easily. We are trapped in by the blueberries now with no reasonable expectation of a way out. We even are letting them explore our side on their own, open borders for their 'science ships' which means that not only can they decide to invade us if it turns out we happened to get something that they later want but in the terms of the treaty they have the means to covertly set up fleets and installations on our side of the relay."

After a couple seconds Azure asked "Are you done?"

"For now" Earl replied "But mark my words this treaty is going to be the end of us… sir"

"I obviously cannot tell you classified intelligence beyond your paygrade commander. However the treaty was necessary because based on just the fleet out there alone we had no option but to access to any demands they made, in practice we had no bargaining position whatsoever. Considering this we needed to carefully work with their council in order to ensure our survival as a species. Considering that I think this treaty has went very well for us, we have been granted full access to their wider galactic market and the asari have even agreed to flat out give us much of their technology. Granted I would bet it will be their second rate outdated tech, but even reverse engineering that would be far better than what we are currently using. The key thing is for us to build and expand our fleet as fast as possible while colonizing any garden worlds to try and catch up to these giants. That will be slow and difficult but it was our only choice."

Over the next couple days the majority of the citadel fleet left save a single wolf pack of Asari Frigates. They stayed to help keep pirates and raiders out as the majority of the human fleet needed to head back to Remnant for maintenance as most of the ships were launched in a somewhat incomplete state rushed out of drydock before construction was 100% complete. The Ruby station crew, which was now merged with the Suell crew for the time being witnessed almost a dozen science vessels come through, all exploring this new region of space. Exactly one week after the day the treaty was signed the first Asari shipment of drive cores and element zero came through. Along with several permitted trading ships this began to integrate humanity into the galactic economy. The situation on Aoria was calming down as the threat of imminent destruction got more and more distant and it became clear a new age was beginning for humanity.


End file.
